The most commonly used child-restraint devices are used in the back seat or when there is no air bag or it can be turned off in the front seat and are held in place with the normally provided vehicle seat belt that is designed to fit around an adult. Such attachment has proven unsatisfactory mainly because the seat belt is not ideally positioned to hold a baby seat in place. Even when the belt is properly fitted, in an accident the deceleration of the restraint device and thus the deceleration of the child and of the vehicle itself are all cumulative to a normally somewhat loose belt connection and must be overcome.
In recent times a securing system for a child restraint has been developed that is described in ISO standard 13216-1. With such ISO devices it is required that the vehicle have baby-set anchors that are fixed to the vehicle frame or the vehicle seat. These baby-seat anchors that are for example formed as attachment eyes are engaged by elements that are for example formed as snap-type clips. Such anchoring elements are fixed on the frame of the baby seat. As a result of this solid connection of the baby seat with the vehicle frame the deceleration of the vehicle is transmitted directly to the baby seat and then to the child so that the potential of injury of the child is reduced.
The disadvantage of the ISO child restraint is that the child-restraint device with its anchoring elements are attached to the vehicle-fixed baby-seat anchors at a single axis so that rotation about this axis is possible and in an accident the child sitting in the child-restraint device is subjected to considerable angular deceleration.
Another disadvantage is that as a result of the different vehicle types, the geometry of the child-restraint device must be accommodated to the vehicle type and as a result many different styles of child restraint are needed, making mass production and stocking difficult for the retail outlet.